This invention relates generally to a fuel burner apparatus and heat exchanger for burning and converting fossil fuel such as gas into heat.
Burners have been known in the past wherein combustion air and fuel are introduced into a combustion chamber, ignited, and thereafter allowed to expand and travel out of the combustion chamber through a flame opening into a heat exchanger. Flame spreaders have been situated forward of the flame opening so as to distribute the flames and combustion gases thereby more evenly heating the heat exchanger into which the flames and combustion gases are entering.
Various apparatuses have been devised in the past to hold a flame spreader in front of a flame opening, however, these apparatuses are generally inadequate in holding the flame spreader sufficiently parallel to the flame opening and concentrically therewith so that an even distribution of the flames, combustion gases, and unburned fuel particles can occur. Some past apparatuses tend to deform due to the change in temperature, thereby causing an uneven distribution of the combustion gases, flames, and unspent fuel within the heat exchanger. Accordingly, this causes an inefficient overall heating system in that the heat exchanger is not evenly heated and, further, unspent fuel particles escape in streams without combusting and creating heat.
In the past, fuel has been introduced into burners or combustion chambers through the use of valves which are opened upon demand for heat. These valves are generally either open or closed. However, when these valves are opened, a sudden gush of fuel is generally allowed to travel into the burner and, because all the parts of the burner have not yet been fully heated and ignition cannot occur instantaneously, a certain amount of fuel is generally expended out of the burner into the flue pipe and then into the atmosphere. This is inefficient in that fuel is wasted without combusting and without causing heat to be delivered to the heat exchanger.
Burners of the past have included blowers for providing combustion air into the combustion chamber of the burner. In doing so, however, care has not generally been taken for providing non-turbulent air into the combustion chamber and, therefore, the burners have been generally loud and have been inefficient in causing all fuel particles to combust.